Referral Bonuses

December 7, 2004 12:12 AM

Any metafiltarians work for companies in the bay area [monterey to sf] that pay you big fat $$$$ bonuses for referring new hires?
posted by th3ph17 to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Companies are still doing that? I thought that died off in 2001.
posted by jeremias at 4:24 AM on December 7, 2004

We're still doing it and we haven't been profitable in 7ish years (other than a couple quarters on a non-operating basis)
posted by substrate at 7:32 AM on December 7, 2004

Response by poster: a company i was with a year ago was still doing small cash bonuses.

i'm just looking for some proof of selfish motivation for resume forwarding before i actively search around for people willing to do so.

fortune favors the bold and all that.
posted by th3ph17 at 8:10 AM on December 7, 2004

Well it's certainly one way to get a stack of worthless resumes and create an environment where everyone is goofing off with their friends.

Then again, that's usually how it is anyway, so carry on.
posted by o0o0o at 8:24 AM on December 7, 2004

The problem with paying out referral bonuses is that while, yes, you can demonstrate that, in principle, a good referral hire brings value and saves costs, you actually have to have a mechanism for capturing that extra value, and wringing out that extra cost.

If you can't turn that into real numbers on the balance sheet, then the referral bonus is just makes those people more expensive than someone walking in off the street, turning the whole system on its head.
posted by LairBob at 8:30 AM on December 7, 2004

my dad's company is. but he's an engineer...
posted by ruwan at 8:35 AM on December 7, 2004